Pastels

This weekend I am off inland to Maniototo area in Central Otago, to a tiny place called ST BATHANS:"Beneath the Hawkdun Range and the Dunstan Mountains is the tiny township of St Bathans. With a present population of 5 people and one hotel, it is a far cry from the days of 2000 people and 13 hotels. Situated beside the beautiful Blue Lake (created by the sluicing and channelling of the gold digger

Jack Richeson & Co., Inc., through its Richeson School of Art & Gallery division, announces The Richeson 75 International Pastels Art Competition.The entry deadline is on November the 15th.So, if you want to take advantage of this call for artists, read the prospectus.Good luck !

The Multi-Brand Color Chart for Pastels by Marie Meyer was published yesterday by Huechroval. I've been sent a pdf preview copy of it - on which this review is based - and a hard copy is on its way to me from Santa Fe, New Mexico. The idea behind this new publication is that it should help all pastel artists when choosing their pastels. Every pastel artist seems to be on the lookout for

drawing hands in charcoal - over life size, A1 paper - also featuring my lovely plan chest!This shows part of my plan chest - the large sheet of paper - A1 - is lost in the large shallow drawers, they take huge A0 sheets :>) A1 is the size of 8 sheets of typing paper side by side.One of the fun things of starting to load work into the plan chest was in unrolling old drawings and finding stuff f

Click here to receive your free Pentel 12-Color Oil Pastel Set. Promo code : SA2008 Note : I don’t know where the code came from.. they will probably be bombarded with requests so you may very well not get this… but it never hurts to try. This is another excellent freebie courtesy of Free Stuff Times.

I guess when the spell is broken the art comes gushing! LOL. No I don't want to set this one up as anything more than a sketch and a sort of art stretching exercises. Here it is then a 3" x 5" entitled Meadows and a look forward to spring! On eBay

I was just playing around with this small canvas board. This is mainly a study in skies that built from there.

Use Pastels To Enhance Your Command Of ColorsBy Karl Sultana Because of its ease of handling, pastel is an excellent medium for a beginning painter to learn about color or become more familiar with the various pigments derived from diverse sources and how effectively they blend, contrast, or complement one another. Plan Colors in Advance A good color reminder is to prepare a ‘custom color chart’ after you’ve planned your pastel drawing and chosen your colors, but before you begin work. Using the pastel colors you’ve chosen (leaving aside black or very dark colors), apply a one-inch horizontal strip of color across a piece of paper (the same type of paper you plan to use for your work). Leave an inch of clean space between each stripe and write the name/number of each color at the far end. Then, turn your paper 90 degrees and using the same pastels in the same order apply another one-inch strip of color. You may have to clean each pastel after it passes through each of the c

I get quite a bit of traffic from people searching for information on using pastels, and I hope that my blog is of some use to them ......... see pastel demos on your right under ART DEMONSTRATIONS, and posts on pastels under SOME OF MY POSTS BY CATEGORY.There are a numerous other resources for pastellists on the web and I am happy to announce a new one by artist Casey Klahn called PASTELS BLOG. This looks like being a really good site and definitely worth adding to your blog roll.To see another excellent artist who works with pastels, pencils or ink DO visit Katherine Tyrrell at MAKING A MARK. Lots of art information, art history, works in progress, you name it! .... Katherine's site is a fund of interesting information and a great source of inspiration.There is yet another great site at BACHMAN ART at Squidoo, - "created to gather pastel demos and tutorials into one convenient location for the beginning pastellist. There's more than one way to create a beautiful pastel. See how di

Something a bit different to what I have done in the past when showing you a 'work in progress' (WIP). These pastels that you see here are what I have used on Water's Path - Willochra Creek.I Said I would post images of my pastels in this thread at WetCanvas so decided to post larger photos here on my blog because there is a limited size for the WetCanvas Forum to view and will point them to this post.On completing the pastel work the first image shows the pastels that I was constantly picking up and putting down in a given day. They are resting on soft foam in a pull out drawer of my easel. The foam is also used to wipe the pastels against to keep my colours clean. These two images show you all the pastels for my last project that I did use.I am right handed and this second image displays my pastels that are on a trolley to my right. Usually what I do is at the end of my days work, give a final wipe to the pastel on that piece of foam that you see in the bottom left and place in th

Snowing this Sunday, so working in studio Working on composition and large form Adding the lights without using my lightest colours Further along trying to get the details and form of the car going deeper with my darks then my lightest light (but never using white) Rav in Snow 18 x 24″ on Gray Canson By Dan Gray Visit Dan’s Site==>DF Gray Homepage pastel art lessons, pastel drawing, pastel lessons, pastel painting, Pastel Painting and Drawing Lessons & TipsShare This

Snowing this Sunday, so working in studio Working on composition and large form Adding the lights without using my lightest colours Further along trying to get the details and form of the car going deeper with my darks then my lightest light (but never using white) Rav in Snow 18 x 24″ on Gray Canson By Dan Gray Visit Dan’s Site==>DF Gray Homepage pastel art lessons, pastel drawing, pastel lessons, pastel painting, Pastel Painting and Drawing Lessons & TipsShare This

On my return from a recent vacation, I was overjoyed to find April’s Licorice of the Month Club selections waiting for me. This month I got to enjoy Kookaburra black licorice and Mini Pastels. The month’s selections also included Licorice Toffee, but as I have mentioned before, my jaw simply is not up to the task of chewing such confections. A few months ago we received an extra bonus of Kookaburra black licorice, so I have already mentioned it before. However, this time the sample received was larger, so I was able to enjoy it more thoroughly. As before, I found that it had a wonderful, soft texture. The flavor is very sweet and mild - almost too mild. To my taste, it could have done with a bit more licorice flavor, though it certainly wasn’t objectionable. As a bonus, we received a small sample of Mini Pastels. These are somewhat reminiscent of Good & Plenty, though smaller and in a multitude of pastel colors. Their flavor is also much more subtle than Good &a

Claude Monet "Fruit Trees" 1865-75225mm x 292mmPrivate CollectionPastels, drawings, sketchbooks and Monet - four of my favourite things are combined in the new exhibition about "The Unknown Monet" at the Royal Academy of Arts until 10th June 2007. The exhibition then moves to the Sterling and Francine Carter Art Institute in Williamstown in Massachusetts from 24th June until 16th September 2007.‘You must begin by drawing … Draw simply and directly, with charcoal, crayon or whatever, above all observing the contours, because you can never be too sure of holding on to them, once you start to paint.’ CLAUDE MONET, 1920Despite his statement, Claude Monet (1840–1926) spent most of his life staunchly denying the role drawing played in his creative process. Critics, biographers and journalists did not write about it, and his paintings were often praised for their lack of it. The reality, however, is that Monet carried pocket-sized sketchbooks with him throughout his life, setting out

When working with pastels, you will more than likely create a lot of dust during the course of a painting session. Never try and blow the dust from the work surface as it can be dangerous to your lungs. Take your work outdoors and gently tap the paper or canvas to remove the dust.

On my website www.pastelsandpencils.com I have a page called "Art Materials and Other Resources" which identifies all the art materials and art suppliers I use - pastels, coloured pencils, pen and ink, paper, sketchbooks - and the rest! I started to develop this page last year. Gradually I've added in all the different items - and associated images - and it's now one of the most popular pages on the site. I guess we're always interested, whether clients or fellow artists, in what materials people use for their work!I realised just recently I'd never formally 'signposted' about its existence from this blog so this post is to remedy that omission. I've always been very grateful to the people who had websites which shared information as I developed my artwork and tried different things - and it's a pleasure to share the information I have - even if it did take a bit of time to sort it all out!While some products I use will continue to find favour over time (e.g. I've been us

This is the second of two posts providing an overview of abrasive supports for use with pastels. Yesterday's post discussed a range of supports - Ampersand Pastelbord, Art Spectrum Colourfix and Ersta Sanded Paper.Today's post covers four different surface:Jack Richeson Premium Pastel Surface (new product)Sennelier La Carte Pastel (Pastel Card) / Rembrandt Pastel Board.Schminke Sansfix PastellkartonWallis PaperFuture posts will cover making your own abrasive supports using pumice or marble dust and this will be covered in a future blog post and the velour type papers.Quotes (in the boxes) which follow are all from the Dakota Pastels website unless otherwise indicated. I was generally impressed with the presentation of information on this website - which specialises in pastels and associated art materials.Jack Richeson Premier Pastel SurfaceJack Richeson is introducing a new pastel surface produced on three different substrates:140lb. paper, 1/8” hardboard and 3/16” Gator Boar

Christmas in Cheshire available via the Art for UK Youth North 2007 exhibition in April)5" x 15", coloured pencils on Art Spectrum Colourfixcopyright Katherine TyrrellI really like making a mark on an abrasive support when developing artwork involving either pastels or coloured pencils. So how come I've not done an overview about abrasive supports before? This post begins to remedy that problem and completes with a second post tomorrow.Why use abrasive supports for pastels and coloured pencils? I use an abrasive support for pastels because I find it invariably gives me much greater control over my soft pastel sticks. Adhesion is also very much better than when pastel is used on paper. Abrasive supports vary as to how much pigment can be laid down before the tooth is 'full' - some have such a good grip they positively eat soft pastel sticks.The way I use my coloured pencils on abrasive supports is very similar to the way I use pastels. The only real difference seems to be

Pura Ulun Danu Bratan19.5" x 24.5", soft pastelcopyright Katherine TyrrellYesterday, I visited "Pastels Today", the annual exhibition of The Pastel Society (February 28th - March 11th 2007 at the Mall Galleries) and saw all 346 works being exhibited by members and non-members.I'm splitting my posts about this in two and this one is about the exhibition as a whole. The one that follows (today) is about some of the artists whose work I liked as I want to do the highlights justice. I'm also going to be cross-referincing Vivien Blackburn's post about the exhibition on her blog 'Paintings Prints and Stuff'. [Update - here is Vivien's post with links to the work she liked.]You can see some of work in the exhibition if you press the new button in the Mall Galleries menu 'Pastel Society Works for sale' or the 'Annual Show' menu item on The Pastel Society website. Having an online version of an exhibition seems to be very much the new thing that Societies need to do for annual exh

What I’ve learned so far is that there is no one definitive right way to use these things. What works for artist A may not work for artist B. My first pastel was a complete disaster. Well, actually more than one but that’s beside the point. So I bought a book. Then I bought a couple more books. Each book describing the methods of the author, and each author having his/her own unique method. Some begin with their hardest pastels, and finish with the softest. Others begin with an underpainting. An underpainting might be done in watercolor, acrylic, or dry pastel wetted with water or alcohol. I’ve tried several of these methods, but only recently discovered an article in the Pastel Journal by a professional artist doing his artwork in a manner similar to my own. I felt vindicated from deviating from the norm. To complicate things further, soft pastels come in varying degrees of softness, and will perform differently on different types of paper. A good comparison of some

Today is the turn of the Blues and the Greys. I don't really do a lot of 'blue' paintings but I so seem to use some of the blue pastels quite a bit for both highlights and darks. Over the years, I 've also grown to appreciate coloured greys more and more.There is a good range of hues in the blues box. From ones which are very useful in more subtle pictures and within a more traditional palette (for example in "Dunwich Single" or "Violets in a jam jar" below) to ones which command attention in brighter more contemporary pieces (see "The Fish Bowl" below). I used BV12 and some touches of BV11 in the latter piece and the pigment strength and cover is simply astounding."The Fish Bowl" is an interesting example of what happens when you have a go at using some of the colours you don't normally use! I had tremendous fun doing it although I'm not sure whether it's ever going to find a place on the walls of my home!The second box is a personal selection I made from the Greys series

These two Unison pastel sets are Yellow and Yellow Green Earth. The Yellow set is the one set where I've lost a pastel. It's somewhere in Italy on the border between Tuscany and Umbria!None of the Unison pastels have names. They all have code names based on the set they belong to eg Y = Yellow and YGE = Yellow Green Earth.Most sets have 18 different hues and tints of that hue - and the pastels are then numbered 1-18. I find this makes it very simple to keep your pastels organised in their related colours if kept in their original boxes - which is what I do.On the whole, I've not come across many pastel brands sold in the UK that have a good strong pigment rich sunshine yellow - Unison is one of the few that provides such a shade with Y10. It was used along with other pastels from this set in "Spring Flowers and Pomegranate" which you can see at the end of this post.Yellow Green earth is a really interesting set of quite muted colours which I like very much and find very useful i

"Nocturne" Here is the latest in my "getting to know oil pastels" effort. My three new boxes of oil pastels came last week and I couldn't wait to try them out. This piece uses all three brands - Sennelier (my favorite so far), Holbein (this is a little harder than the creamy Sennelier but the set of 25 that I purchased has some really rich gorgeous colors - like the dark greens orange and purple in the foreground), and Cray Pas which are a little waxier than the other two - but are a really good value and would work well for laying down big areas of color. I found it worked best to go from the harder pastels to finishing with the buttery Sennelier to blend everything. If I tried to use the Cray Pas on top of the Sennelier it was so hard it just scraped off the softer pastels. Today I have a 16"X20" commission to finish. I hope to be able to post it here this evening. Thanks for "tuning in",Shelley

I spent the afternoon painting :) - ignoring the fact that I really should have been tidying upIt's based on sketches done sitting on the beach as the sun set and night fell, and memory, it's the last of the light, just catching the sand and sea and clouds.It's only 11 inches square in a black leaved sketch book by Pink Pig, using Unison pastels (I love them best) and compressed charcoal to regain some of the blacks. Unison pastels are so luscious and don't constantly break like some pastels. I know a lot of people like Rembrandt pastels but I found they just constanly broke and shaled into little pieces and were a bit scratchy feeling to draw with. A very good pastel painter told me that Schminke white is the whitest white of all with brilliant cover so I plan to treat myself to a couple when I'm near a supplier and see how I like them.I do love working in pastel but .... oh the framing of it! it's a nightmare. I may just get my framer to do this one completely and for once hav